Theme Read #4 -- Migration/Immigration -- October - December 2011

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Theme Read #4 -- Migration/Immigration -- October - December 2011

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1whymaggiemay
Modificato: Set 4, 2011, 2:47 pm

Migrate: (of a person) to move to a new area in order to find work; to go from one country, region, or place to another.

Immigrate: to come to a country of which one is not a native, usually for permanent residence.

Expatriate: to banish (a person) from his or her native country; to withdraw (oneself) from residence in one's native country; to withdraw (oneself) from allegiance to one's country.

Refugee: a person who flees for refuge or safety, especially to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc.

This quarter’s theme read allows you to read in the subject area(s) you are most interested in. Often books cross over areas as well; for instance, Shogun where Blackthorn begins as an involuntary immigrant and then becomes an expatriate. Also, immigration and migration are often considered interchangeable. Unfortunately, a search for expatriate fiction turned up nothing, but besides Shogun, there are certainly other examples. Surely, others will chime in with their ideas.

Below are books which might interest you. I welcome other suggestions which fit these areas.

Migration/Immigration – Fiction:

Tortilla Curtain
Brick Lane
Behind the Mountains
The Ginger Tree
Red Glass
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Small Island
The Joy Luck Club
Shangai Girls
The Namesake
My Antonia
The House of Sand and Fog
How to Be an American Wife
Brooklyn
The Grapes of Wrath
Esperanza Rising
Caramelo
The Immigrants

Migration/Immigration – Non-Fiction:

Enrique’s Journey
Ex-Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, From Greece to the Present
American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California


Refugee – Fiction:

Shadow
Little Bee
A Tale of Two Cities
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Skeletons at the Feast
Day After Night
Pretty Birds
The Cellist of Sarajevo
What Is the What
Refugees by Margaret Haerens
Refugees by Catherine Stine
The Refugees by Arthur Conan Doyle
Refugee by Piers Anthony
The Refugee by Arthur C. Clarke


Refugee – Non-Fiction:

Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, an American Town
The Translator: A Tribeman’s Memoir of Dafur
Infidel
Refuge Denied: The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust
The Key to My Neighbor’s House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda
Strength in What Remains
Human Cargo, a Journey Among Refugees
Learning to Die in Miami, Confessions of a Refugee Boy

Expatriate – Non-Fiction:

Africa and Archaeology: Empowering an Expatriate Life
Away: The Indian Writer as an Expatriate
Eugene Bullard, Black Expatriate in Jazz-Age Paris
Polanski: A Biography
Mary Cassatt: A Life

I'll be back closer to the beginning with possible discussion questions.

2rebeccanyc
Set 3, 2011, 4:12 pm

Thanks, whymaggiewhy, this is a great start! Lots of books I haven't heard of.

In trying to think of global reading, I'm focusing on books I've read (and some still on the TBR) that are by authors who aren't from the US or UK, even if they write in English. Here are some first thoughts.

Fiction I've Read
Harare North by Brian Chikwava, a novel about Zimbabwean immigrants to London
By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah, a novel about a Tanzanian immigrant to England
The Moldavian Pimp and some of the stories in The Bride from Odessa, both by Edgardo Cozarinsky, involve Eastern European Jewish immigrants to Argentina
Wandering Stars by Sholem Aleichem -- in the second half, Eastern European Jews immigrate to New York
Job by Joseph Roth, again Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York

Nonfiction I've Read
In Search of a Lost Ladino by Marcel Cohen, a poetic elegy for Ladino and its speakers, the Jews exiled from Spain and other areas around the Mediterranean in 1492
Out of Egypt by Andre Aciman, a memoir about his and his family's life in Alexandria in the 1950s and their subsequent exile in the US
Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman, a memoir about her immigration from Poland to Canada and then the US
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit by Lucette Lagnado, a memoir about her family's exile from Cairo to the US; I actually didn't like this book that much, but the parts about Cairo were interesting
Them: A Memoir of Parents by Francine du Plessix Gray -- marginally appropriate for Reading Globally since it was her parents who immigrated, but her portrait of them is fascinating and she's a wonderful writer

Fiction on the TBR
I Was an Elephant Salesman by Pap Khouma
The Glatstein Chronicles by Jacob Glatstein

3hmajor
Set 3, 2011, 11:46 pm

Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie is a book I that seems to really fit with this theme. It's interesting to thing about how the theme categories relate to each other: Is Hiroko an immigrant or a refugee? Is Sajjad an expatriate or a migrant? Obviously, the categories overlap, but each also has different associations for a reader ...

4Samantha_kathy
Modificato: Lug 31, 2016, 8:51 am

Questo messaggio è stato cancellato dall'autore.

5markon
Modificato: Set 15, 2011, 3:40 pm

6StevenTX
Set 18, 2011, 2:54 pm

Here are some more suggestions. The first one is a story of refugees. All the others deal with immigration:

A Lake Beyond the Wind by Yahya Yakhlif
The Road Home by Rose Tremain
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Skvorecky
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
Giants in the Earth by Ole Edvart Rolvaag
Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx
A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips
Personality by Andrew O'Hagan
Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee
Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo
Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Drown by Junot Diaz

7arubabookwoman
Set 19, 2011, 11:01 am

I've been reading a lot of Australian books, and there are some very good ones relating to its original settlers from the convict transports. Two nonfiction books are The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes and A Commonwealth of Thieves by Thomas Keneally. Fiction on the subject includes The Commandant by Jessica Anderson, The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville and The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey.

8BiblioEva
Set 20, 2011, 5:50 am

I love refugee/migration books, so I have a few suggestions!

Nonfiction
A Border Passage by Leila Ahmed is about her immigration from Egypt first to the UK and later to the US.
The New Kids (touchstone isn't working) by Brooke Hauser, an American journalist, is about a high school in NYC that's only for new immigrants/refugees.
Translation Nation is about Latino immigrants to the US.
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam is graphic nonfiction about the author's grandfather, who moved to several different countries during his life.
From the Land of Green Ghosts is a memoir by a Burmese refugee in the UK.

Fiction
Into the Beautiful North is a novel about a Mexican girl who crosses illegally border into the US to try to find men to bring back for her village (since all of its men have become migrant workers)...I'm not sure if it quite counts since she never intends to stay.
The Story of an African Farm is about European immigrants to South Africa.
Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid is about an Antiguan girl who travels to NYC to work as a nanny.
Summer of the Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara is a 'literary mystery' featuring a Hiroshimo survivor who immigrated to California.
White Woman on a Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey is about an Englishman and his French wife who move to a Caribbean island.
The Zigzag Way by Anita Desai has three storylines: one is about Irish immigrants to Mexico.
I the Divine by Rabih Alameddine has a protagonist who immigrates from Lebanon to the US.
Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous has several characters who are immigrants in Rome (the main one is from Algeria).
Arabian Jazz by Diana Abu-Jaber is about a Jordanian family that's immigrated to upstate New York.

Those are just the ones I've read this year, so I'll stop before this list gets out of control!

9eairo
Set 26, 2011, 2:36 am

Most of my recent reading has been related to Africa, and while the main themes of the books I've read have usually been something else, quite a few of the character are or have been some sort of migrants ... emigrants, refugees or sometimes immigrants.

A character often seen in the African fiction since the late 1960s is someone studying abroad, in Europe or the US, or someone who has been there and is now coming back to find out that either the country, or he or she has changed.

Here are some that come to mind:

Partir by Tahar Ben Jelloun - Morocco to Spain and back
Désert by JMG Le Clezio - there are two time frames in the book, and two different migrations going on.
An African in Greenland - the title says it!
Ancestor Stones - "Abie returns to her homeland and village after years spent in Europe, meets her four aunties and listens to their stories."
Cutting for Stone is set mostly in Ethiopia (visits the US too), but the main characters are mostly of Indian origin.
Season of the Migration to North has been already mentioned. This is once more about those who came back, this time to Sudan, feeling alienated after education in Europe.
Mission to Kala is in a way about micro-migration. If you live in a place where people usually don't move, you don't need travel far to find a foreign culture and become a stranger.

10whymaggiemay
Modificato: Set 28, 2011, 11:44 am

Here are some questions you might wish to consider when reading your book(s). Some were written by me, but most I borrowed from the web:

Fiction questions:

Was the setting of the book unique and how did it enhance or detract from the story?

Was the time period of the book current or in the future or past?

Could you relate to the problems the characters encountered as a result of their time period?

Were women and men treated equally in the time period, or was one subservient to the other?

Which specific themes did the author emphasize throughout the novel? What do you think he or she is trying to get across to the reader?

Were the characters real and believable? Could you relate to their predicaments? To what extent do they remind you of yourself or someone you know?

Do characters change or evolve throughout the course of the story? How? Which events trigger such changes?

In what ways do the events in the books reveal evidence of the author's world and/or political view?

Did parts of the book make you uncomfortable? If so, why? Did this lead to a new understanding or awareness of some aspect of your life or others’ lives you might not have considered before?

Non-Fiction questions:

Was the book written in a fair and impartial manner?

Was the book written in an engaging manner?

Did the book answer any questions you had prior to reading it and, if not, why not?

Did you find anything surprising about the facts introduced in this book? What?

Did reading this book changed your opinion of a certain person or topic? How or why?

Does the author present information in a way that is interesting and insightful, and if so, how does he or she achieve this?

If the author is writing on a debatable issue, does he or she give proper consideration to all sides the debate? Does he or she seem to have a bias?

Has the book increased your interest in the subject matter?

11SassyLassy
Set 28, 2011, 11:41 am

Internal migration from the periphery to the centre is often as difficult as moving to another land. You somehow expect things like customs and culture to be familiar but get lost in the chasm between the old and the new, ending up belonging to neither. Some fiction dealing with this would be A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Continental Drift by Russell Banks and No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod.

V S Naipaul writes of the confusion arising from the expectation of familiarity when moving from one country to another in The Enigma of Arrival.

12Polaris-
Modificato: Ott 1, 2011, 8:13 pm

I recently started Only Yesterday by S Y Agnon, forgetting that migration was going to be this quarter's theme. How serendipitous! It is an esteemed classic of Hebrew literature, set in the (relatively) early Zionist period of settlement in Palestine - roughly 1905 or 1906 (though so far this hasn't been specified). This was the time of a somewhat limited 'wave' of immigration to the Holy Land from Jewish communities of eastern and central Europe in the years prior to the First World War known as the 'Second Aliyah' (Aliyah means literally to 'go up' or 'ascend' to either the Holy Land generally or Jerusalem specifically, or also to read from the Torah in Synagogue. Coloquially in Hebrew it means 'to migrate to Israel'.). The book was written in the 1930s and eventually published in the mid-40s. It's English translation has only become available relatively recently.

I'm still only in the early chapters, but migration is obviously going to be a central aspect of the novel as that is a fundamental tenet of existential Zionism. I'm fascinated to read it as, apart from it being a renowned work of Israel's only Nobel literature laureate, it is a migration I have made myself in the past, during my twenties.

The naive protagonist Isaac has set out for his destination from his place of birth - the province of Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which corresponds I think to the modern day Polish-Ukrainian borderlands) - via a lengthy railway journey to Trieste and then the 10 day sea passage to Jaffa. The style of writing is quite unusual as it seems to read almost like a series of biblical style parables - although the early 20th century period makes this quite beguiling.

It is definitely fiction, although there is an interesting glossary section which includes details of the many characters who are woven into the story, or who are at least referred to incidentally. Such characters are to the best of my knowledge real, some of them indeed become locally famous pioneers, writers, thinkers or politicians and such like. This helps to give the work a very authentic and detailed period setting. Perhaps I'll be able to address more specifically the questions set out above once I've finished it, but I'm loving it so far!

13janeajones
Ott 1, 2011, 9:07 pm

A Vietnamese refugee goes back to Vietnam and bicycles his way through the country -- a wonderful memoir: Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham.

14Megi53
Modificato: Nov 25, 2011, 11:01 am

I decided to tackle a facsimile edition of Hariot's Virginia for this quarter.

ETA in late November: ugh, too hard to read the olde English font in Hariot, so I am going to read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua instead.

I didn't realize how badly I wanted to read it until Penguin pulled their titles (temporarily, thank goodness) from Overdrive last week.

15rebeccanyc
Ott 6, 2011, 5:32 pm

I've just started a thread on how we can improve theme reads for 2012. Please come by and offer your thoughts and ideas.

16rebeccanyc
Ott 10, 2011, 10:59 am

I Was an Elephant Salesman: Adventures between Dakar, Paris, and Milan by Pap Khouma

This autobiographical novel takes the reader on a journey with the narrator from his home in Senegal, where he studied pottery, despite this being considered inappropriate for someone with his traditional family background, but then followed some cousins to the Ivory Coast, where he first started selling trinkets to tourists, and finally to Italy, en route, he thought, to Germany where a Senagalese fortune teller told him he should go. Through Khouma's first person tale, the reader experiences the hectic pace of the illegal immigrant's life. Even when he is not traveling to Paris, trying and failing to get into Germany, having difficulty getting back into Italy, returning briefly to Senegal, and then coming back to Italy, he is on the go: trying to buy the elephant sculptures, jewelry, shirts, and other objects; traveling to beaches and cafés and metro stations to sell them; searching for places to live that are cheap and safe; moving from town to town to find customers and escape the police. It is a hard, difficult, dangerous life, especially because Khouma and his narrator were among the first Senegalese to travel to Italy (the novel takes place in the mid-1980s and was published in 1990). Khouma also gives the reader a real sense of the brotherhood among the Senegalese immigrants, how they will mostly try to help each other even if they didn't know each other back home, although everyone is more or less equally poor and struggling. Their friendships and support of each other are largely what keep them all going. Towards the end of the novel, the Italian government gives the Senegalese immigrants papers that allow them to be documented immigrants and legally stay in Italy, but then the police oppression picks up.

I enjoyed this book for its vivid depiction of the life of these immigrants and the ways they try to stay beneath the radar of the authorities, including arriving places separately, traveling in different cars on trains, and more. I also appreciated the way it illustrates the mixed relationships between the Senegalese and the Italians, the tourists who want to buy the items the vendors are selling while the police not only try to stop them from selling (confiscating their merchandise, threatening them with jail or deportation), but also suspect them all of selling drugs; the terrible lack of treatment the narrator receives when he is very ill and goes to a hospital versus the kindness of some Italian café owners and others. Above all, the reader gets a real sense of what it is like to be very hard-working but very poor and very black and very undocumented.

In the introductory notes to the translation I read, both the translator and a Dartmouth Italian professor point out that Khouma was not only one of the first Senegalese to come to Italy but one of the first to write about the experience of African immigrants there. When he wrote the book, which was published in Italy in 1990, he had the help of an Italian journalist in shaping the stories, but he has since gone on to write other books without that kind of editorial assistance. They also point out that he was a trailblazer: other immigrants have followed in his footsteps and written perhaps more complex and novelistic works. Nonetheless, this was a compelling read.

To try to answer some of whymaggiewhy's questions in #10, I would say that reading this autobiographical novel made me more conscious of the individuality, motivation, and personal histories of people who I probably grouped in my mind as "African vendors" having first encountered them in Paris in the 80s and later in New York City. It was a good reminder that there is more to everyone than meets the eye. Further, as described in an online interview with Khouma on the occasion of the English publication of this book, although hardly surprising, there are continuing issues not just in Italy but in other European countries with Africans who have moved there but who are not considered "Italian" or "Spanish" or whatever. Reading this has inspired me to focus my other reading for this theme read on African immigrants to Europe (or the US) so I can benefit from additional perspectives.

17whymaggiemay
Modificato: Ott 29, 2011, 12:59 pm

I've finished the first of the books chosen for immigration reads, Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao.

This is a semi-autobiographical novel about a mother and daughter who escape from Vietnam just ahead of the Communist take over. The daughter, Mai, had gone to the United States accompanied by an Army Colonel, a family friend, six months before her mother, Tran. Tran traveled on the final day of evacuations on papers provided by the Colonel, who had also provided papers for her father, who never made the trip, not having arrived at their scheduled meeting place.

The immigration experience is very different for the two women. Mai, 14 at the time, immerses herself in the language and culture, thinking that if she proves how smart she is and keeps moving forward the other kids won't notice her foreignness. Tran, being older and more set in her ways, is reluctant to give up her culture and is incapable of letting go of the superstitions which are so much a part of Vietnamese life. She cleaves to the other Vietnamese in the area to comfort herself. She feels more isolated by the fact that her growing daughter is spreading her wings, as all teens will, and leaving her mother behind.

18whymaggiemay
Nov 6, 2011, 2:17 pm

I've finished two more which fit in this theme.

In The North China Lover (translated from French) Marguerite Duras shows us an expatriate woman so in love with her adopted country that she and her children live in penury, her eldest child is allowed to become a drug addict, her teenage daughter enters an affair with a man twice her age, and her youngest son is abused by the older son, all because she cannot stand to separate herself from Vietnam.

In Catfish and Mandala, Andrew X. Pham returns to Vietnam in the late 1990s (which he had left at age 10 as one of the boat people) and discovers not only that one can never truly go home, but that his work ethic and education are so different that he often can no longer sympathize with the problems of his country men.

19EBT1002
Nov 25, 2011, 2:06 am

I recently completed Foreigners by Caryl Phillips which fits in this theme. It's a novel constructed of three stories. Each story tells of a Black man who migrated from Africa to England, each in different circumstances (and, indeed, one in a different century than the other two) and each facing isolation, marginalization, and dehumanization based on his race. For me, it's a difficult novel to review and I'm still working on that, but I wanted to offer my recommendation. It's a provocative and emotional novel, although the stories are narrated in paradoxically dispassionate voices --- at one point I actually checked to confirm that I was reading fiction. I was, but I also did a bit of internet research and recognized that each story was a fictionalized account of a true life. And each of the lives was touched by tragedy and injustice. And each of the stories brought individual humanity to the too-universal experience of tragedy and injustice. I gave Foreigners four stars.

20rebeccanyc
Nov 25, 2011, 9:55 am

Sounds like an intriguing book.

21StevenTX
Nov 26, 2011, 11:44 pm

Small Island by Andrea Levy

Was the setting of the book unique and how did it enhance or detract from the story?

Small Island is about a Jamaican couple who immigrate to England in 1948. Most of the novel is set in England, but with flashbacks to Jamaica. I found myself tantalized by its depiction of Jamaica as perhaps a more prosperous and racially progressive place than I would have thought for the time. I would like to have learned more. The novel's portrait of England is a vivid one of a country ravaged by war and facing the difficult social questions of peace in a crumbling empire. There is also an episode in India showing the racial bias at the root of British imperialism.

Was the time period of the book current or in the future or past?

About half the book takes place in 1948; the rest is flashbacks to various points in the characters' earlier lives.

Could you relate to the problems the characters encountered as a result of their time period?

Each of the four major characters had a unique set of problems to overcome: racial prejudice, disillusionment, loss, and wartime trauma. Though I haven't experienced any of these myself, the treatment was believable, true to its time period, and it was easy to sympathize with each of the characters even when they were at odds with one another.

Were women and men treated equally in the time period, or was one subservient to the other?

Women were somewhat the strongest and more appealing characters in the book, and nothing stood in the way of their developing and using that strength. Perhaps the biggest distinction was that brought on by the war in which men went away to fight while the women stayed home, giving each an experience to which the other could not relate.

Which specific themes did the author emphasize throughout the novel? What do you think he or she is trying to get across to the reader?

Racial and ethnic prejudice was the principal theme, displayed not only in the Jamaicans' experience in England but in the British soldiers' attitudes towards the local population in India. The most obvious message was of the arrogance and error in assuming that a person of another race or culture is inferior in experience, understanding, or perception. For example: Hortense, the woman from Jamaica, is reluctant to take a loaf of bread from an English baker's filthy hands. She has been raised to expect better standards of hygiene. But the women around her assume that she is so ignorant that she doesn't know what bread is.

Were the characters real and believable? Could you relate to their predicaments? To what extent do they remind you of yourself or someone you know?

Yes, they were very real and believable, though I don't think they reminded me of anyone I know.

Do characters change or evolve throughout the course of the story? How? Which events trigger such changes?

They evolve in their attitudes toward one another, but not so much in their broader views. I think this is very realistic. A person can more easily overcome his prejudices towards an individual than that person's entire race, inconsistent as that may be.

In what ways do the events in the books reveal evidence of the author's world and/or political view?

It is certainly no surprise that the author is a descendant of a couple who emigrated from Jamaica to England in 1948, nor that her message would be one of racial tolerance and an end to imperialism.

Did parts of the book make you uncomfortable? If so, why? Did this lead to a new understanding or awareness of some aspect of your life or others’ lives you might not have considered before?

The depiction of white Americans as, without exception, vulgar, violent and racist was somewhat unsettling. Surely there could have been some exceptions then, even as (I hope) there are today.

---

We live at a time when the fear and hostility directed towards immigrants is increasing here in the U.S. as well as in Europe. Politicians compete with one another to see who can be the most venomous towards those who are only doing what their own ancestors did in search of a better life for their families. Whatever the political and economic issues may be, these people are still individuals, each with as compelling a human story as any of us. That, I think, is what Small Island is trying to say.

22Megi53
Modificato: Nov 29, 2011, 8:27 am

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

(about an immigrant family from China via the Philippines)

Nonfiction questions:

Was the book written in a fair and impartial manner? Yes, actually.

Was the book written in an engaging manner? For the most part.

Did the book answer any questions you had prior to reading it and, if not, why not? No, because she actually isn't as tough as the media hype made it seem. She waffled about sleepovers, violin practicing, pets ...

Did you find anything surprising about the facts introduced in this book? What? I didn't realize children of Asian extraction made up more than 50% of students in elite American musical groups.

Did reading this book changed your opinion of a certain person or topic? How or why? It actually lowered my previously high opinion of Amy Chua.

Does the author present information in a way that is interesting and insightful, and if so, how does he or she achieve this? Pretty much -- she uses personal anecdotes as well as psychological and sociological article citations.

If the author is writing on a debatable issue, does he or she give proper consideration to all sides the debate? Does he or she seem to have a bias? She has a bias toward "Chinese parenting" but she gives in to Western parenting when confronted by her younger daughter.

Has the book increased your interest in the subject matter? No; it's lessened it, unfortunately.

ETA: I'm a mostly-nonfiction reader and believe I'll just watch this group in 2012 rather than participate in the new theme reads. I'm fascinated with other countries, but just don't care to read novels very often at all. Thanks for putting up with me, anyway!

23markon
Modificato: Dic 5, 2011, 4:10 pm

I was introduced to The warmth of other suns this fall when the author, Isabel Wilkerson, spoke at my congregation one Sunday. This book views the migration of African Americans from the southern US to northern US over several decades through the prism of three individuals: Ida Mae, who travels with her family from rural Mississippi to Wisconsin and ultimately Chicago; George, who flees the Florida orange groves for New York after attempts to obtain a fair wage get him in trouble, and Robert "Pershing," a Louisiana physician who can't obtain privileges to work in a local hospital and makes the long drive to California and moves his family there after he establishes himself.

I was really struck by the push/pull dynamic we talked about this summer in my immigration study - that there are forces pushing people to leave their homes (lynchings, unfair wages, inability to use skills and training) as well as forces attracting people to new places (the chance for better wages, education, respect).

The white woman on the green bicycle by Monique Roffey was an intriguing read set in Trinidad.

Sabine is the white woman on the green bicycle, and it's her voice that comes through most clearly. She and her husband George come to Trinidad in 1957 from England (George is British, Sabine is French).

The novel covers the handover of Trinidad from a British protectorate to an independent state, and also covers the life of George's & Sabine's marriage. George & Sabine come to Trinidad for a temporary 3-year posting that turns into a much longer stay. George is happy in Trinidad, Sabine is not.

However, the first third of the book takes place in 2006, and begins with the thorough and intentional beating of the adult child of one of George's & Sabine's employees by the police, and George's & Sabine's inability to do anything constructive about the incident, let alone the police and governmental corruption endemic in Trinidad.

Part love story (George & Sabine, George and Trinidad, Sabine & PM), some insight into power and politics. This is a story of the immigration of white Europeans into a majority black Caribbean nation.

24whymaggiemay
Modificato: Dic 15, 2011, 12:09 am

I obviously thought immigration was an interesting topic for study as I’ve finished two more on the subject.

If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar After the sudden death of her husband, a woman from Mumbai tries to decide whether to immigrate to the U.S., where her son and his family live. Among the many challenges she faces are leaving behind not only her friends and country, which are very dear to her, but also the small things like her daily routines, apartment, and grocery shopping in the local outdoor markets with its familiar chaos and smells. Though she speaks English well, so much else is so foreign to her in the U.S. and she seems to be more sensitive to the subtleties of racism than her son is.

Hunger for Memory by Richard Rodriguez is an autobiography of his path to education in the U.S. It is often an essay on the educational challenges facing immigrants and the U.S. policy of bilingual education. Using his own experiences, Rodriguez argues that immersion is the much better method for teaching English. He suggests that rather than losing one’s identity to the new language (as suggested by the bilingual proponents), one gains a new identity from it. He says that when he spoke only Spanish he was aware that he spoke a private language (not understood by gringos), but that he had no access to the much bigger and more useful public language of English. When he mastered English he gained that public language.

Rodriguez also discusses how his parents and the family dynamic were changed when his parents (in order to help their children learn English) began speaking only English in the house. Rodriguez’ father was not as fluent as his wife and as the children became more fluent they laughed at his heavily accented English. In embarrassment he became nearly mute in his own house, allowing his wife to take over his role in leading the children. However, with his Spanish-speaking friends he was a totally different, much more talkative person. Further, in learning English and trying to fit into the American way of life, Rodriguez in particular (and to a lesser degree his brother and sisters), lost much of their command of Spanish and became separated from their culture.

In the remainder of the book Rodriguez discusses how education and being a supposed “minority” student changed his life and his thoughts on both. I found the arguments in this book very interesting and thought provoking.

25Samantha_kathy
Modificato: Lug 31, 2016, 8:51 am

Questo messaggio è stato cancellato dall'autore.